Just five years ago, I had cradle cap. At 55. Medically speaking, those itchy sores on my scalp were known as folliculitis—yet another new vocabulary word for my growing lexicon of cancer-related words. Nurses recommended an over-the-counter salve to treat this infection of the hair follicles. A woman doctor I never saw again wrote me two prescriptions, one of them for a medicated shampoo, which another woman in the chemo room said had worked well for her.
The perhaps-cause for the folliculitis was that the scalp could not breathe normally after hair loss. I kept my head covered most of the time because I was cold, though the woman in the recliner next to me claimed she wore her hat only outside.
I’d decided against the take-home shots to boost red blood cell production. The alternative was a shot of Aranesp at the end of chemo, administered every third week. Linda called the drug “liquid fire.” It hurt, because the molecules were so large, and I could feel the drug traveling up my arm. Those large molecules meant that Linda could not give me the dosage quickly. Still, I considered it better than three separate shots over the next three days.
The next day was Saturday. Thinking ahead,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? I obsessed over church attendance, writing, Church is a problem, or I’m a problem at church. People are very kind,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but it’s emotionally wearying to put on a Nice Sick Person face and tone. And one doesn’t wish to lie indefinitely, but how much reality can people take? . . . How to handle the emotional overload of church? It’s the only group thing I need to face. I’d like to do this with kindness and integrity both, but it’s wearing. . . To not go just isolates me from the spiritual nurture I need. . . But the truth is, I don’t feel very well, and my gut still hurts,What is a third party payment gateway ? and this is just round 2A. If this is cumulative, I don’t see how I will survive. . . . I’m not good company, but should I be left alone? I’m also not good company for me, with gloomy thoughts and fears.
I was also thinking about the biblical text for that Sunday, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. “If you are God,” the tempter says as Jesus ends his forty-day fast in the wilderness, “command these stones to become bread.” Later in the Gospel, Jesus asks a crowd of people, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” I wrote, I’m pondering about being given stones instead of bread, or the temptation of Jesus to make the stones become bread. Seems the other option is to get stronger teeth. Here’s a hard thing to chew—better to be tough.
Having no answer for my spiritual problems, I turned to practical ones. Water had begun to taste bad, somehow both metallic and like warm spit. I’d been advised to use plastic utensils when my food began tasting like metal, but what was I to do about water?
At breakfast the next Friday morning, I dawdled over my egg sandwich and got teary, not wanting to go to chemo. With a week off, I’d just started feeling human again, a process that would be repeated each session. I felt as if I were one of those inflatable plastic, round-bottomed figures that kids punch over and watch bounce back up. I didn’t want to spend most of the day, which promised a cloudless blue sky and sunshine, cooped up in a small room with no windows.
“What’s the hardest part?” Ben, my driver that day, asked.
But I couldn’t isolate one worst part. I kept moving slowly,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile and arrived about fifteen minutes late.
The good news was that my numbers had rebounded with the Aranesp, and I did not need another injection of “liquid fire.” My numbers never got low enough to make me miss a treatment. Rebekah, my priest, had promised specific prayers; it never occurred to me to pray for specifics, such as “Lord, let my cradle cap go away enough so that I can wear my wig.” I was praying for three qualities: grace,Overview description of rapid Tooling processes. strength, and courage, having determined that if I had those three, I could move forward, with or without my wig. Once, when a friend and I were speaking of prayer, she told me that she thought of prayer as making a space for grace—which always surrounds us—to enter. So prayer, I wrote later, reflecting on her ideas, is like the first spring opening of all the closed-up windows and doors of winter, letting in light and fresh air, blowing out the stale air of winter.
Even when people tried to be helpful, they sometimes were not. I received one card expressing the hope that I could see the hidden blessings in this experience. I wrote in response, I want to yell and scream and throw fits, say over-the-top stuff such as, Can you even imagine a hurt so deep, a loss so profound, that cards only exacerbate it? I want to throw the idea of hidden blessings in her teeth. I recognize that there’s still anguish and bitterness of spirit over what I’ve lost. And then I wondered, thinking of a generous gift of help I’d refused, What flow of grace might I be damming up with my stubborn insistence on independence?
The perhaps-cause for the folliculitis was that the scalp could not breathe normally after hair loss. I kept my head covered most of the time because I was cold, though the woman in the recliner next to me claimed she wore her hat only outside.
I’d decided against the take-home shots to boost red blood cell production. The alternative was a shot of Aranesp at the end of chemo, administered every third week. Linda called the drug “liquid fire.” It hurt, because the molecules were so large, and I could feel the drug traveling up my arm. Those large molecules meant that Linda could not give me the dosage quickly. Still, I considered it better than three separate shots over the next three days.
The next day was Saturday. Thinking ahead,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? I obsessed over church attendance, writing, Church is a problem, or I’m a problem at church. People are very kind,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but it’s emotionally wearying to put on a Nice Sick Person face and tone. And one doesn’t wish to lie indefinitely, but how much reality can people take? . . . How to handle the emotional overload of church? It’s the only group thing I need to face. I’d like to do this with kindness and integrity both, but it’s wearing. . . To not go just isolates me from the spiritual nurture I need. . . But the truth is, I don’t feel very well, and my gut still hurts,What is a third party payment gateway ? and this is just round 2A. If this is cumulative, I don’t see how I will survive. . . . I’m not good company, but should I be left alone? I’m also not good company for me, with gloomy thoughts and fears.
I was also thinking about the biblical text for that Sunday, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. “If you are God,” the tempter says as Jesus ends his forty-day fast in the wilderness, “command these stones to become bread.” Later in the Gospel, Jesus asks a crowd of people, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” I wrote, I’m pondering about being given stones instead of bread, or the temptation of Jesus to make the stones become bread. Seems the other option is to get stronger teeth. Here’s a hard thing to chew—better to be tough.
Having no answer for my spiritual problems, I turned to practical ones. Water had begun to taste bad, somehow both metallic and like warm spit. I’d been advised to use plastic utensils when my food began tasting like metal, but what was I to do about water?
At breakfast the next Friday morning, I dawdled over my egg sandwich and got teary, not wanting to go to chemo. With a week off, I’d just started feeling human again, a process that would be repeated each session. I felt as if I were one of those inflatable plastic, round-bottomed figures that kids punch over and watch bounce back up. I didn’t want to spend most of the day, which promised a cloudless blue sky and sunshine, cooped up in a small room with no windows.
“What’s the hardest part?” Ben, my driver that day, asked.
But I couldn’t isolate one worst part. I kept moving slowly,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile and arrived about fifteen minutes late.
The good news was that my numbers had rebounded with the Aranesp, and I did not need another injection of “liquid fire.” My numbers never got low enough to make me miss a treatment. Rebekah, my priest, had promised specific prayers; it never occurred to me to pray for specifics, such as “Lord, let my cradle cap go away enough so that I can wear my wig.” I was praying for three qualities: grace,Overview description of rapid Tooling processes. strength, and courage, having determined that if I had those three, I could move forward, with or without my wig. Once, when a friend and I were speaking of prayer, she told me that she thought of prayer as making a space for grace—which always surrounds us—to enter. So prayer, I wrote later, reflecting on her ideas, is like the first spring opening of all the closed-up windows and doors of winter, letting in light and fresh air, blowing out the stale air of winter.
Even when people tried to be helpful, they sometimes were not. I received one card expressing the hope that I could see the hidden blessings in this experience. I wrote in response, I want to yell and scream and throw fits, say over-the-top stuff such as, Can you even imagine a hurt so deep, a loss so profound, that cards only exacerbate it? I want to throw the idea of hidden blessings in her teeth. I recognize that there’s still anguish and bitterness of spirit over what I’ve lost. And then I wondered, thinking of a generous gift of help I’d refused, What flow of grace might I be damming up with my stubborn insistence on independence?
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